News item | 07-09-2023 | 12:16
Six digital platforms must comply with the new Digital Markets Act (DMA) with a total of 22 of their services from March 2024. It’s about Alphabet (among other things Google Search, YouTube), Amazon.com, Apple (among other things Appstore), ByteDance (TikTok), meta (among other things Facebook, Whatsapp) and Microsoft (among other things Windows, LinkedIn) that are designated. The DMA protects European consumers and entrepreneurs, ensures more competition and freedom of choice in digital markets and regulates better supervision of mergers and acquisitions, for example. The Netherlands has been one of the driving forces behind these new European competition rules.
The DMA will soon allow users of these platforms to send individual messages from one messaging service to another. App developers may also no longer be forced to use the payment system of app stores and platforms may not favor their own products or services, for example by placing them at the top of the search results. The DMA also regulates the possibility to transfer your own data from one platform to another and the possibility to remove pre-installed apps. There will also be a broader reporting obligation to be able to assess mergers and acquisitions in the digital economy.
Minister Micky Adriaansens (Economic Affairs and Climate): “These European rules give entrepreneurs of all sizes more growth opportunities, promote fair competition and better protect consumers. The DMA will also make us less dependent on these six largest platforms and their services. As a result, entrepreneurs can do business better via the internet and consumers can more easily buy and sell products.”
DMA: six gatekeepers, 22 digital services
The DMA is now introducing these additional competition rules for 22 digital platform services of six providers with a so-called gatekeeper position that users can hardly avoid. The six different platforms they fall under have now been designated as gatekeepers by the European Commission. They have six months to comply with the rules from the DMA in March 2024. This group of online platforms must therefore comply with various prohibitions and obligations on pain of high fines that can amount to 10% of the group’s annual turnover.
According to the DMA, a platform is a gatekeeper if it provides the same core platform service in at least 3 EU member states and has an annual turnover of €7.5 billion in the EU in the last 3 years or if it has a market value of at least €75 billion in the past year. Also, such a platform must have at least 45 million active end users for 3 years and at least 10,000 business users based in the EU.